1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a peripheral device with a centralized management server, and to a system, a computer program product and a method for managing peripheral devices connected to a network.
2. Discussion of the Background
Today's world of information technology relies on an increasingly complex inter-relationship between computers, communication networks, printers, scanners, fax machines, copy machines, pagers, cell phones, and other devices. This complexity strains the ability of the users to manage the different components of the systems. For example, the user of a printing system including several printers connected via a network faces the burden of managing each printer.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional printing system, which includes several printers or multi-function peripherals (MFP) 10-30 connected to a communication network 90, to which is connected a user station 40. The printing system of FIG. 1 can be used, for example, as a distributed printing system, wherein a user with a large printing job saves time by parallel printing on several different printers. Alternatively, a user may want to print different portions of the job to printers located at different sites, or can select printers with different characteristics (e.g., color, high speed, stapling, punching, and book finishing capabilities) based on what the user wants to do.
More generally, devices 10-30 can be peripheral devices, such as printers, digital copiers, fax machines, copy machines, or combinations thereof. The communication network 90 is for example the Internet or an intranet. The user station 40 can be a personal computer (PC) or a workstation (WS), which permits a user to connect to the network 90 (for example via a network interface card) and access the peripheral devices 10-30 (for example via a Web browser).
In the conventional printing system of FIG. 1, each of the peripheral devices 10-30 includes a local management device (not shown) that performs management functions for that device. The user station 40 accesses the management functions of each device through the network 90. The user must, however, access, manage and maintain each peripheral device 10-30 independently via the devices' individual network addresses. The dotted lines in FIG. 1 illustrate these independent management accesses between each of the peripheral devices 10-30 and the user station 40. This conventional approach is rather inefficient from the point of view of the user station 40.
A proposed solution is to dedicate a server on the network to perform the management function for the user. This proposal, however, requires adding a dedicated server on the network, which is cumbersome and costly. Furthermore, if the dedicated server breaks down, the peripheral devices cannot be properly managed.